This invention relates to the field of telephone system features, and, more specifically, to a new feature to provide the far end party the ability to control music on hold.
Any participant on a conference call can place his or her telephone on hold. If a xe2x80x9cmusic-on-holdxe2x80x9d feature is assigned to that participant""s line, music is played back to the far end party. In the conference example, however, the far end party is all of the other participants on the conference call. The injected music disrupts the conference call and there is no way for the remaining participants to identify or isolate who initiated the hold. Furthermore, a person placed on hold may not want to listen to the choice of music on hold or the music or message may be too loud. Therefore, there is a need in the art for the party on hold to control whether or not music is played and at what volume.
This problem is solved and a technical advance is achieved in the art by a system and method that provides a party that has been placed on hold control of the music on hold. This advancement is achieved by adding a dual-tone, multifrequency (DTMF) and/or speech detector and a processor in the music on hold system, or, alternatively, to the music on hold system connection. A two-way connection is established to the music on hold system. The detector monitors the incoming signals and, if a predefined signal string is detected, the detector notifies the processor to disable the music on hold. Further, a code may be defined to cause the processor to decrease/increase the volume of the music on hold, change the program etc.
A further embodiment provides an energy detector and a processor connected to the two-way connection on the music on hold system. The detector monitors the incoming signal for energy of any kind. If energy is detected, then the detector notifies the processor to disable or lower the volume of the music on hold. If there is no energy detected after a predetermined time period, then the volume can be increased to indicate that the party is still on hold.